Training Log Archive: jennycas

Well, since everyone seems to be reflecting on their year, maybe I'll go one better and recap 15 seasons of running 21s (elites on and off, but more on than off - I think.) I am deeply thankful that the requirement to qualify for elites by getting 3 gold credits in a year has been scrapped. Basically, I would achieve this, but then be too far down the elite results to get enough credits to stay in elites, but then drop back to 21A for the next year, then scrape into E for the year after, and so on. Actually, I think that since this no longer happens, all the elite girls are running faster and stronger, and there are so many more of us - which means that my results are no better, but they feel like more of an achievement because of the effort required. (Don't know if it plays out this way in the men, somehow. They get to do a lot more pack running than we do, by the sound of it.)

Oh yeah, and 15 years ago the Southern Arrows didn't exist. It's fair to say we've had peaks and troughs (and sometimes I've been part of the trough) but I can't imagine belonging to any other NOL team, that's for sure! Reuben and Ben and Tyson before me have built it up with a lot of determination, and produced the best uniform in the country. Right now I think it's a team that people are proud to be part of, and that's great. We just need to do a little (a lot?) of work on getting together a decent junior team. That's why I think I'll try coaching instead of managing for a change :)

Sad day all the same. George tells me that our favourite Fudge-cat got skittled on the weekend and he had to bury her yesterday :( Smudge and Tiger are a bit confused about what has happened to their mother. Still, I guess it was tempting fate to have 3 cats - managing to keep 3 of them out from under the wheels of passing cars for 5 years is probably equivalent to having one cat for 15 years. And now we are no longer in breach of the local council's proposed 2-cat maximum.

Event: Australian Relay Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Same area as yesterday but at 1:10 000

Vanessa went out first and came back only 2 sec down on Tracy so I went out chasing Fel. That lasted all of 500m and then I got stuck trying to get up a bare rock slab to my first control which was a rockface halfway up it. Laurina overtook me going over the hill to 3, I did the rest on my own though I could see her in the distance leaving 9 as I came into it. Was terribly slow up hills with no power in my hip which had really stiffened up since yesterday. Never saw Kathryn but she finished in front of me, obviously, so apparently I came back in 4th (thought it was 6th). I'd lost too much time for Susanne to be able to catch, so we stayed 4th. Originally I thought we were only a couple of min down on 3rd (fine runs by Tracy, Fel & Briohny) but now I look at the results and see it was actually 4 min I feel better. Even on my best day I couldn't have been 4 minutes faster than I was today.

Presentations were just a little awkward when for some reason the Vic girls' results weren't official, so they weren't called out even though everyone knew they had won. Thankfully natural order restored itself on the podium and we South Aussies lay real low despite having been called out as 3rd....

Event: Australian Long Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Northern Warbys. This course took me more time and effort than a half marathon would. It was a good course - I just haven't had to concentrate so intensely for this long, for some years.

1st control okay but tentative, I went wide to 2 but would have been faster to go all the way out to the track like Sus did, because Mace caught me 2 min at 2. I was with her into 3 and 4, then left 4 too high, saw a flash of yellow up the hill which was Shannon and got confused, by the time I came down to the control at 5 I'd lost both of them. Left 5 too far left not thinking straight but saved myself on a random clearing and was very cautious into 6. 7 & 8 were okay, 9 should have been too but where I crossed the creek below the control I saw a cliff and couldn't identify it on my map so thought I was too far downstream, when in fact the cliff was the lower black dot of what I had read as 3 boulders in a row. Lost 2 min here maybe? (Actually, looking at the splits, it's closer to 4.)

10 okay, 11 was the long leg and I decided to go right but I hadn't fully made up my mind until I reached the bottom of the hill, saw Anna - I had been wondering how long it would take her to catch me 10 min - and I belted off down the creek with her in hot pursuit. Once we started going uphill, I didn't see her for dust :) 11 to 12 was a bit disappointing, such a steep uphill climb I had to walk, and where I crossed the track on the ridge I was further north than I thought so started looking about 200m further north than I should have for the radio control. Vanessa punched it just before me and I didn't really have a plan when I left it except to go the direction she'd gone...remembered to navigate soon after, but then I was standing on top of the rock with 13 below it and so sure I was in the right spot but couldn't see the control until someone punched it!

Very glad to finish, still wondering how Rachel took 10 min out of me - this terrain must suit her - but the best I could have done would have been 90 with clean controls and optimal route choices. I am just not fast enough in this stuff, and tentative on the downhills, though my ankles are stronger than they were.

(oops, this has become a bit of an essay - but now I don't have to bother writing any notes on the map!)

Event: Australian Sprint Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

I was taping my ankles on the train station platform waiting for Lauren's train to arrive in Benalla as it was only 30 min to my start (the train was 75 min late and luckily Susanne managed to arrange her another start), but I still had enough time to warm up. Which I needed because it was a bit of a running race. Very glad not to have been one of the first junior girls out there - the elephant tracks helped a lot. When I finished people assumed I'd stacked it because I had so much dirt on me from rolling under a gate which was quicker than climbing the fence around the oval. Happy with 13th but I cannot understand why the majority of my ranking points come from sprints when I am not a sprinter.

Very glad we made it to the model event in the Warbys because it takes me a while to get my head around Alex Tarr's mapping and I figured I'd need all the help I could get, having spent half an hour on one control at Barambogie in 2003.

A lot of people didn't make it to the model event, however, which led to a lot of discussions among the South Australians the next day, about how we can better coordinate the sprint/model events on the Friday next year. I guess that the sprint champs now has so many competitors that the starts need to run over a few hours, but we can definitely have a wider time window for the model event.

The usual loop. Should have worn my newer shoes because the ground has dried out in the last couple of warm days and was hard on my shins. Didn't feel very bouncy but to my surprise this was a couple min faster than I last remember!

Maybe this will help alleviate my pessimistic streak which has surfaced again this week. I could say it began with being given a non-elite running number for the Aust champs - are they trying to tell me something? - but that would be complete bollocks. Anyway, the public humiliation of having to spend this weekend wearing a t-shirt with the stoned koala logo on it, promoting next year's Aust champs in Adelaide, will be far greater... (Probably I am just exhausted from fitting 5 days' worth of work into 3 days this week. And what will I do with the 3 days of annual leave I've just saved? Why, use them to drive to Canberra next Easter, of course!)

Yay for Melbourne and coffee &shopping on Brunswick St! I would just like to say, though that driving Tullamarine to Kinglake via Clayton is counter-intuitive.

When I got to Monash to pick up Hania she still had to take the work ute through a car wash so I took myself through the 25m indoor pool. It was okay apart from the heat and chlorine.

When we got to Kinglake (I can't believe she drives nearly 80km each way each day) Hania & Quentin sat down and showed me on the maps where the fire came from on Black Saturday and where it went when the wind changed - and then I didn't sleep too well. In the morning she took me for a walk to Bald Spur Rd. The burnt houses have been cleared now and in many cases people are rebuilding but it was still disturbing to hear how many people had died in which of the houses on that street.